X-Message-Number: 5958
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: for Peter Merel
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 22:08:01 -0800 (PST)

Hi again!

This is for Peter Merel:

I do not understand at all how what you say in any way conflicts with my 
comments on such stories. I said that I took OBSERVATIONS much more seriously
than theories, and would separate the observations, no matter whom they come
from, from the theories that observer had made about what he or she saw.

Well, OK, some people have seen things happen in the sky which they 
interpreted as flying saucers from another world. Perhaps we will wake up one
morning to learn that they were hypertechnological spy planes devised by the 
government of one country or another. Just how does that impugn the point I
made about observations versus interpretations? 

I will say, unfortunately, that (although its news articles dealing with 
scientific developments continue to be interesting) most of its longer articles
have the smell about them of someone who wants to make some kind of political
case. If you insist, I will look up the article to which you refer and read
it, but my feeling from what you say is that the article basically tries to
hang flying saucers onto the neck of the Big Bad CIA. Or some other Malicious
Intelligence Agency (MIA). What may be said below all the politics could turn
out to be very little, and no better founded than the standard theory of
flying saucers.

When I made my distinction I did not make it for political reasons, but 
because I thought we should all keep in mind that separation. And yes, if
someone came to me explaining various incidents in the sky or on earth,
I would note the incidents but would not feel that I must accept their 
explanation. That includes, of course, someone who tells me about something
that the CIA is supposed to have done: the events, stripped of their 
explanation, very likely did happen. I would want to know a lot more before
accepting the explanation (depending on what I knew of the person, and the
reasonableness or lack of it of the explanation to me). 

I'm not claiming infallibility here. It seems to me that distinguishing
observations for explanations is the very first act of anyone who tries to
reach the truth. But we can all go wrong in other ways, too.

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson


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